TR -- no offence, don't worry! (And the 12M is a big step up on your recent running training, no?) Bone is dynamic stuff, continually dissolving where it's not needed and forming where it is (hence the things grow with us, and astronauts have so much trouble with them fading away). So here's an analogy: say you're trying to build an Eiffel tower out of matchsticks on a wobbly table, using glue that takes 10 mins to dry, but every 5 mins some joker comes and knocks the table. Result: no progress at all, because all your matchsticks fall down before the glue has dried. Now imagine the same joker comes and gives the table a massive shove, but only once per hour: now most of the layers you glued up are OK, and you only lose the most recent ones. Result: you build up your tower. The gentle knock every 5 mins is that daily 5M, and the big knock once per hour is having a few consecutive days off before indulging in a blow-out...

...which is a long-winded way of justifying 5x0.5M@5:22/M,10M@6:29/M,4M@7:21/M, total 20M avg 6:36/M, and not in my lightest shoes, either :- ). So that dongs my speed, speed endurance and even the fat-burning bells for another few days. Wife's b-day tomorrow but a day off work alone today, so it was too good an opportunity to miss... and leg feels fine at present. Also I gave blood yesterday evening and who should I see out running than the attendant to whom I swore I wouldn't do anything recklessly energetic afterwards?

And well raced Jools, and glad to hear you're getting over those physical insults ZaTTu & Wardi.

Jools - that's impressive to PB at this time of year. Miss my runs along the Weston sea front. Did some of my best training there over last Christmas.

Dids - if you've not seen him do stand up, you should watch some Dara O'Briain; very similar views on alternative medicine, religion, clairvoyants and dieticians. Very funny & I have to agree with all of it.

I think it was Zatopek on the subject of doing slow training, said something like, "I know how to run slow. I want to be able to run fast"

PS, more significantly the quality of Quality Street has decreased in quality. Tastes like some sort of chocolate substitute.

Oh, and did my best run since the spring last night. About 14 miles at about 6.15 pace (all estimate), but felt fresh & strong which was surprising since I was still a bit hungover from the previous nights antics at the World Darts at the Ally Pally.

CW - good analogy, but I cant believe that a couple of rest days and then a 20M inc some fast running is better for you than 5M day after day - if you have bone issues. But I think that you can now relax about your bones if you can run 20M on them. Anyway, your 20M having given blood trumps my 12, my legs were moaning after 8M, I have a long way to catch up this time.

Dan - I went into Tesco yesterday and all they had left of the enormous stack of selection tins was two Quality Streets. No Roses, no Celebrations. All sold out.

What has happened? Personally, I think we've had a year of being weaned slowly onto chocolcates in vast quantities by the constant plugging of big bags of minstrels, crunchie pieces at £1/bag just for this. We are the turkeys being fattened by evil farmer Nestle.

In the good old days we got a tin in late december and it lasted to mid January, and we felt guilty, and always left the big purple ones for my Dad, because that was the right thing to do. Now, a tin is scoffed in one evening in our house. Go for a wee when they are opened, and risk there just being a few awful orange ones left when you return. I have no idea whether the taste has changed. In fact, not even sure if I can taste them anymore.

A bloke arrived at the office with a tin of Celebrations this morning. Already I have eaten every malteser, (on the basis that they are lighter and therefore better for me than Snickers) much to the displeasure of an upstart Office Junior who has picked out the Galaxy and concealed them somewhere only he knows. An almighty debate about whether it's OK to put wrappers back in the tin has also broken out.

LD - I know what you mean. Luckily I like the orange ones so get to polish them off at the end.

I have no idea what all this Hadd, Noakes etc. stuff is about. In fact, I don't even know what the disagreement is about. Maybe I'm just naive, but running seems like a pretty simple affair really, particularly training for longer distances.

Well done in the 5M Jools, sounds like all those parkruns are doing you good. Very nice run by Dan as well.

No training for me today - lots of alcohol yesterday (not too late though), back at my desk by 7:30 this morning, and we've invited some people over this evening. Unfortunately they almost all accepted, so we're going to have more than 20 people in a small house, and trying to feed them all...

Plan for the weekend is 20M tomorrow and 20M Sunday - never tried back-to-back long runs before so will be interesting to see how it feels.

A solid 45 min swim on thursday then 25 mins injury free on the treadmill yesterday.........only to wake up middle of the night with flu like symptoms shivering/shaking and the rest of the carry on, brilliant. Ah well at least the leg gets a few more days rest before the next run.

Back in the North East for Christmas and I might actually have time to keep up with the thread for a few days. Woohoo. I'm very much in Rest Period before the schedule starts on 31st, but Parkrun is on the cards for the morning. It's supposed to be fancy dress, but I'll have to make do with a Santa hat.

Much enjoying the ongoing training debate, and hope it continues. That said I think Padams got it right. Interesting how obviously different phenotypes manage to compete successfully at the same distances (eg Tergat and Haile; anyone remember Haile sprinting against Mottram?). So should runners all benefit from the same training program? On a related point I found myself watching an old documentary on Obree vs Boardman in the early 90s recently. Difficult to imagine two greater extremes. Obree claimed to spend only 10hrs a week on the bike, with only 3 of those classed as training. Still managed to break the hour record, and become pursuit world champ with a huge world record.

Hope the niggles ease for Charlie, Wardi, TT et al. And nice to see a barnstorming run from Dan. I have just had a few days rest courtesy of a dose of Norovirus.

I skipped the second run yesterday in favour of more treatment. Had another test run this morning. A mixed pace 6m, with some strides and 3 x 1min pickups at about 5:15m/m to test reactions at a variety of paces. Massively improved, and I'm sure having Monday and Tuesday off will help even more.

Looks like there has been some cracking training. CW putting skeletal issues to one side and running a pretty tough looking 20 miler! DanA with a good long tempo run and a PB from Joolska the other night.

Liking the book idea TR, though you should look away now

Good news you are able to get back to running after your run in with the street urchin ZaTTu. Thanks for the Lidia Simon tip off, I didn’t find a great deal of info but this was interesting –

Not sure it’s relevant to a first timer like me, but for those with more endurance in their legs, the focus on speed and speed endurance that Lidia’s coach is talking about might prove useful.

I had to bin some mile repeats yesterday, right calf had been a little stiff on an easy run on Thursday but nothing too troublesome, it stated to stiffen up again in the warm up yesterday. I started the first rep but gave it up half way through and jogged home. I can feel a little stiffness in it today but not allot, so will go for a test jog tomorrow. Don’t think it’s anything serious but no point risking an injury this early on.

Mostly dropping in to wish everybody a happy Christmas. My comeback has been interrupted by a hacking cough which is thankfully easing. Hope to run again by Christmas but it might be the new year. No sense in taking a chance given where I am fitness wise but I am aching to get back to it.

On the reaching your potential debate I think that most can reach about 90% - 95% of their potential by avoiding injury and following a sensible consistent plan that constantly challenges for a couple of years. I think that the last 5 - 10% is as much art as science but there are very few of us that get to a position where we can realistically explore this.

Zattu - Glad that you're not too badly hurt. Surprised to see you mention focusing on your strengths a few pages back. There's a dange of getting into semantics here but I think that the focus should be more on the area of greatest opportunity relative to your goal. Of course that's a fairly nebulous term and difficult to define let alone chase but I think it should be kept in mind when planning training. To take an extreme point if a sprinter were training for a marathon we wouldn't tell them to focus on speed.

OS - you're just not looking hard enough or moving in the wrong circles - there were plenty of fat people on my rugby team when I lived in Switzerland. There may not be the huge tins in switzerland but never let it be said that that Swiss don't do big chocolate

I won't be online much and am very unlikely to post again this year as parents and parents in law get visited in 2 separate countries (ok 1 is Wales but it's still a 5 hour drive) so Merry Christmas and happy new year everybody. I hope that it brings you all that you wish for in running and if not that then the patience to bear with everything that gets in the way!

That's an interesting link Y D, cheers. My reference to Simon was in relation to your comment that Paula was probably one of the first women to train like a man. Simon used to do a 3 x 10k session @ just inside marathon pace (which sheds a different light on the link saying 25km was her longest run - it probably was just her longest continuous, but if you're doing 3 x 10k plus wu, recs, and cd, you don't need a separate long run) Sounds like a sensible decision to bin the session and take it easy.

Clearly - I hope that cold/cough goes soon. My reference to focusing on my strengths are simply that my main weakness seems to be anything around 3km-5km (as I get sick quite easily from standard VO2Max sessions), and my strengths tend to lend themselves to marathons anyway, so rather than trying to become a more rounded runner.............

In case I don't get on over the next few days, Happy Christmas to all!

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